The decision to invite the EDL to appear on Newsnight on February ahead of the its march on Luton planned for February 5, touted as the “the biggest demonstration in its 18-month history” according to The Guardian, was ill-informed. Those interested in engaging in the ‘no platform’ debate may do so. However, what was more striking about the Newsnight appearance was Paxman’s ultimate inability to counter the incendiary, anti-Muslim statements tripping off Lennon’s tongue. Inability or unwillingness?

Although Paxman countered Lennon’s characterisation of Islam as a religion or culture that promotes violence, rape, pimping, and homophobia, by asking whether this is representative of Muslims as a whole and suggesting that a minority among all communities engages in these activities, he makes no attempt to decouple the link between something being called ‘Muslim culture’ and violence, sexism and homophobia. Anyone sympathetic to the notion that Muslims are more likely than any other group to be responsible for such behaviour would not have ended the programme believing that there might be another side to the story. The reason for Paxman’s ineffectualness is not, I believe, because he is actually an Islamophobe but that there is a convergence between the EDL’s position, as expressed by Lennon, and general public consensus which is based on the position espoused by political leaders. The common sense is that there is something that is intrinsic to Islam (and hence Muslims – although the two are far from being the same) which leads them to be more sexist, homophobic or violent than the rest of the population.

This is classic racialization: stereotypes about a particular group of people (often clumped together in a homogenising mass that ignores the internal differences among them) are naturalised and made to stand for them. We are thus no longer able to see Muslims without perceiving the stereotypes about them that abound. The debate I participated in on Wednesday night at the Brighton Dome was a case in point. The majority of the panel and the audience was against the proposal that EU countries are right to ban the wearing of religious symbols (75% of the audience polled) and thought that the bans were actually about Islam per se rather than religions in general. Nonetheless, the representative of the Humanist Society, Peter Cave, represented the belief that in fact represents the majority in society at large – that allowing the wearing of the burka, for example, is a slippery slope towards honour killings and forced marriages. In other words, a simple choice to dress according to a particular interpretation of religious belief was linked directly to the ability to kill another human being. Needless to say, as indeed Paxman was meekly attempting to point out on Newsnight, if this type of argument was made about another group in society, it would not go down as easily. Kudos therefore to the audience at the Dome for largely rejecting it!

Both Lennon and Paxman are mired, therefore, in the contemporary logic that discursively separates between racism and the objection to practices associated with a racialized group; in this case, Muslims. A postracial agenda that relativises the significance of racism and increasingly portrays it as ‘reversed’ – enacted by minorities against an embattled and cowed white majority – has become entrenched. It is within this hegemonic consensus that attacks on Muslim people of the vile nature expressed by Lennon become banalised and palatable: there is, nothing, it is argued unique to Muslims that mean they deserve greater protection against slur and attacks of this kind. Postracialism artificially puts everyone on an equal footing by discounting the relevance of colonialism, racism, immigration, and the contemporary civilizational discourse that pits Islam against the West. Muslims, in this vision are not only responsible for more of the violence in society, but their status as a minority group has afforded them unjustifiable protection; it is time now to unveil (pun intended) them and their true intentions.

Postracialism masquerades under the guise of equality to deliver the most pernicious form of racism, one that is purposefully disingenuous. Lennon’s discourse, and Paxman’s easy capitulation to it, demonstrates how widespread an acceptance of the postracial agenda has spread. The EDL talks the talk of equality and diversity, integrating the language of tolerance and inclusivity: everyone who abhors what Muslims are purportedly doing to British society – Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and gays included – are welcome to join. What acceptance of this discourse and the fact the EDL does have prominent members of all of these groups do is to dismiss the degree to which a certain form of racism has today become compatible with a commitment to diversity and tolerance.

While theorists of ‘culturalist racism’ in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Martin Barker and Verena Stolcke, were taking note of how far right-wing parties were using the language of multiculturalism to make them more politically palatable, the current status quo is slightly different. The EDL’s diversity-speak emerges from contemporary racial arrangements: diversity and exclusion complement rather than oppose each other. Under current arrangements, representing a certain form of acceptable, or ‘good diversity’ (not rocking the boat, being secular – or at least not Muslim, shedding the excesses of your ethnic particularism…) can be painted as acceptable. However whoever diverts from the, albeit ever-changing, script of ‘good diversity’ quickly falls into the category of ‘bad diversity’ (the religious, the radical, the angry, the economically useless, etc.). Where you are on the spectrum can change (Muslims were not construed as a particular problem prior to 1989), and that is the convenience of racism today: it is essentially drawn up around shifting inclusions in and exclusions from ‘good diversity’. However, the lip-service paid to diversity itself shields us – the EDL included – from being condemned as racist because, it is suggested, one need only reject ‘bad diversity’ and become ‘good diverse’ subjects for the spotlight to be taken off. The fact that the dividing lines between good and bad are constantly being redrawn is rarely drawn attention to, but it is this that should make us wary of the postracial agenda and its utility in facilitating the persistence of racism.

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9 Comments

j . c

February 8, 2011

you write:

“Postracialism artificially puts everyone on an equal footing by discounting the relevance of colonialism, racism, immigration, and the contemporary civilizational discourse that pits Islam against the West.”

I find this sentence difficult to understand. What is the relevance of colonialism, racism, immigration, etc., that “puts everyone on an equal footing”? In what way should we not be put on an equal footing?

j c

February 8, 2011

You write: “Postracialism artificially puts everyone on an equal footing by discounting the relevance of colonialism, racism, immigration, and the contemporary civilizational discourse that pits Islam against the West.”

I don’t understand. In what way should we not be put on an equal footing?

Thanks j.c.
What I mean is that the postracial agenda pretends that there is nothing particular about racism that leads to some people in society facing more severe discrimination than others. It assumes that everyone is equal while clearly some people are not treated equally due to the histories or contemporary discriminations I mention.

meatpie

June 28, 2011

Fuck me that was ordeal.
Academes loaded on to baffling and dense bureaucratic language.
Stick to your uni bubble where you belong.
The place where words like ‘hegemonic’ and ‘discursive’ are commonplace

David Gwynne

September 8, 2011

You are either completely uneducated or completely lacking in common sense. Or, possibly, you are simply unwilling to see anything but evidence of inequality.

You are blatantly, obviously, fatally, taking Paxman’s statement completely in the wrong light. There is absolutely no doubt that what he is referring to when saying “a lot of people are worried”, are the people who are worried about the EDL’s presence on the streets in protests. You know that, and I know that.

You are not helping any situation for the country’s ethnic diversity or equality by clutching at thin air for evidence of widespread racism or “failure to match the incendiary tone” of radical anti-Muslim groups. The ONLY thing you are doing is making intelligent, open-minded and free-thinking people such as myself and many others weary of this attitude towards anyone who isn’t so “left-wing” they want to see everything that isn’t “ethnic” tarnished with the brush of “post-racism” or “post-racialism”.

Did it ever occur to you that Paxman might not be matching the “incendiary tone” because the EDL spokesman is un-educated, and Paxman educated? And therefore more useful to utilise intellect than raw emotion? Further, did it not cross your mind that the BBC is supposed to be to the extent possible an un-biased, informative service?

For the sake of your own cause, please try to include only actual evidence on your blog, and stop wasting everyone’s time.